


the dummy's guide to courting your favorite gremlin as a pathetically uncharismatic detective

by TheMayBellTree



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: (they are playing the game), Alternate Universe - Dungeons & Dragons, Alternate Universe - Hope's Peak Academy (Dangan Ronpa), Falling In Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Only mentioned though, POV Oma Kokichi, Shuichi Saihara has a LOT of social anxiety, Social Anxiety, Tsumugi and Rantaro are also here, boyfriends who game together stay together, tbf so does Kokichi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:08:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29884362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMayBellTree/pseuds/TheMayBellTree
Summary: Shuichi Saihara wasn't particularly good with crushes... or people. He always stammered, and tripped, and lord knows he had a penchant for rambling. That wasn't good enough to win anyone's heart. So when Toko Fukawa offered him a specially made pamphlet that was sure to make any purple-haired gremlin fall in love with him, he just had to take it! And boy... did it work.
Relationships: Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 9
Kudos: 60





	the dummy's guide to courting your favorite gremlin as a pathetically uncharismatic detective

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Slowpoke_Curry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slowpoke_Curry/gifts).



> Heyo! Here is my gift for Slowpoke_Curry in the Saiouma Pit Secret Valentine event. Sorry for it being so late, I think I've rewritten this thing like... 5 times? Who knows. I scrapped a lot. But hey! It's pretty long!
> 
> Anyways, you requested fantasy! So I uh... kinda gave you fantasy? Kind of? You'll see!
> 
> Also, a special thank you to PsychicCupid (Ezra) for being my beta-reader! You're a life saver!
> 
> Despite the summary this is Kokichi's POV. Shuichi's stuff is in the background technically, but it's still pretty visible!

As Kokichi raced across red-tiled rooftops, the wind blowing his hair every which way in accordance with the brewing storm wreaking havoc on the southern border of Ronpa, he smiled and whooped, his voice travelling in the night and spreading from house to house. He clutched that bundle of bread tighter in his fist, the jingle of extra coins and an ornate, lion-themed ring in his back pocket spurring him on as he heard a single cry for the town guards. They wouldn’t catch him, of course - he was already level seven and town guards tended to only be level one according to the Monster’s Manuel, so whatever their --

_ Wait, that’s metagaming. _

They wouldn’t catch him, of course! Because he was Kokichi Ouma, the greatest thief who had ever lived! The town guards were catching up to him now, as evident by the clatter of an apple stand behind him (that poor merchant) and the shouts that became closer and more vicious with every passing second. The red tiles beneath his feet were out of place and in a state of disarray. The kicking of his boots and the speed of his legs knocked a loose tile from the rooftop and into the cobblestone street beneath him, the tile reverberating against the hard stone; beneath him, he saw the face of a young child, bright eyed and tan, beaming at him from beneath his foot. The child was missing his two front teeth and he seemed much too young to witness a cunning thief in action, but in response to the young, emboldened face beneath him Kokichi simply grinned, kicking away from the tiles with the toe of his left willow boot. 

He heard a grunt, a scoff, a whine, and a neigh. The sound of hooves stamping on the ground drew his attention and whistled through the night sky, wordless whispers of forced dictatorship being lost to the ether. Against his control, his lips stretched into a tight smirk. Before him, the section of rooftops he was traipsing upon ended and the market stalls began. Fine red and white linens hung over a meat stand, leftover jerky left to dry in the cold air swaying gently in the breeze. Briefly, Kokichi calculated the distance that it would take to hop from the rooftop to the wooden posts supporting the linens atop the booth. 

* * *

Smiling, he picked up his d20.

“Um, Kokichi…” Shuichi sighed next to him, resting his cheek in his hand as he leant upon the walnut wooden table that they sat around. His leg bounced in irritation, his teeth tugging at the corner of his bottom lip as he regarded the male before him. “You’ve been rolling bad all session. You shouldn’t have gone out on your own again. Even if the guards are low-levelled, there’s still about twenty of them and one of you. You’re toast.”

With a dramatic flick of his wrist, Kokichi began twirling the white, angelic dice in his possession between his forefinger and his thumb. The golden engravings of the numbers twinkled in the lamplight. “ _ Relax,  _ Shumai! You saw me leave, remember?” and he leant closer to Shuichi, fluttering his eyelashes as he regarded the detective before him, the ghost of a smirk remaining on his face as his bottom lip jutted out and he pouted. “You’ll save me! You’ll be like my knight in shining armor!”

Shuichi simply raised an eyebrow at his antics, thoroughly unimpressed. “Yeah. Then it’ll be two of us against an entire guard.”

Kokichi rolled his eyes and cupped his other hand atop the hand that held his die, shaking it as he prepared to unleash his acrobatics roll. “No sweat! We’ll handle this, easy! I might not look it, but I’m  _ super  _ lucky when I want to be!”

“When you want to be?” snorted Shuichi, the bounce of his leg quickening under the table. Kokichi felt it rock just slightly against him, but he paid it no mind. “So you control your luck, then?”

Kokichi grinned and nodded happily, almost resemblant to a young child in his enthusiasm. “Yup! Like… right now!” And with that he let his dice fall free from his cupped hands, clattering on the wooden surface before them. 

Tsumugi, previously hidden behind a plastic screen much akin to a large folder, stood up and leant across the table in order to check his roll. Kokichi wasn’t one for cheating - that ruined the fun of the game, after all - but his penchant for lying had apparently led Tsumugi to believe that he’d freely manipulate his rolls whenever he could. “That’s a critical fail.”

“Yay! You know, Shuichi, I actually wished for that to happen!” Kokichi grinned coyly and leant towards Shuichi, forcing the other boy to scoot away in retaliation. “Now, you’ll have no choice but to save me!”

“Sure… if the town guard doesn’t get you first.” And with that Shuichi smirked, eyeing Kokichi slyly as he began counting out his own dice and determining which ones were the most appropriate and fortuitous for the occasion.

* * *

  
  


Smirking, Kokichi kicked off of the rooftop, his long, black cape billowing in the winterous air as he neared the meat stand. The rich scent of spiced beef hit his nostrils; the fragrances were delicious and almost homey - so homey, in fact, that he briefly remembered his own mother manning the kitchen in his days back in their village. 

Lost in his memories, he failed to register the rapidly approaching stand before him. Despite kicking off from the rooftop with the hopes of reaching the pole connecting the stand and the fine linens atop it, he suddenly completely forgot his purpose and his reasoning for such a strange action. Only then did he register the whine of a horse and the shouting of a burly man. Only then, when his cape snagged upon the sharp top of the pole before him, did he realize that he was about to faceplant right into it. Only then did he realize that he was toast.

“Ow! Fuck!”

With a whine and a thud, he fell limply to the ground, blood running from his nostrils and the beginnings of a minor migraine pounding against his skull. Lamely, the bread he was holding in his palm fell and bounced against the cobblestone. Although he had found pleasure in the rich fragrances wafting from the hanging jerky, now he found that it was rather intolerable mixed with the metallic scent filling his nose.   
  


“Kokichi!”

Oh, god. Here comes the lecture.

From an adjacent alleyway, a man in blue linens and a matching hat appeared from the darkness. The man rushed towards him, reaching into the satchel around his waist as he approached, surely digging around for a medical kit or some other absurd remedy in preparation to deal with his injured form.

Kokichi simply held up his hand and stuck out his finger, placing it loosely against his lips. Shuichi’s teeth clenched and his pace sped up more. Just a few blocks away, Kokichi could hear the towns guard nearing the two of them, torches illuminating the streets and the huts surrounding them. 

When Shuichi finally arrived to Kokichi, he fell to the ground and placed his arm around his frail, tiny form, drawing him closer and closer - so close that he could feel his body heat. The weather was cold and dry this time of year, but despite that Shuichi’s natural body temperature was so warm and pleasant. Perhaps Kokichi was just freezing, who knows, but he couldn’t help and nuzzle into the man’s neck as he wrapped his arms around him. 

Grunting, Shuichi put his other arm under Kokichi’s legs and pulled him close, lifting him up from the cobblestone that had begun to dig itself into the supple flesh that laid underneath Kokichi’s cloaks and robes. Harshly, he whispered, “this is why you need to be more careful. You know I don’t like it when you go on your… what did you call them?”   
  


Kokichi grinned and nuzzled his cheek against Shuichi’s chest. The soft robes warmed his frigid cheeks. Despite the blood still pouring from his nostrils, simply being in Shuichi’s arms made him feel a  _ little _ better. “Heists!”

Shuichi scoffed. “Yeah. Those.” With a grunt of exertion, he lifted Kokichi from the ground and closer to his chest, racing towards the alleyway that he had appeared from to save Kokichi. His boots thumped on the ground in time with the viciously increasing wind; which, luckily for them, helped to mask any excess noise that they may be making. As they ran, Kokichi had to strain to hear Shuichi’s next words, mumbled and furious, “just wait until we take you back to Rantaro. He’ll be mad too.”

Kokichi ignored the boy’s words, grasping onto his robes tighter in his tiny fists. Shuichi smelled nice, like burning firewood, and Kokichi couldn’t help but sniff him long and slow, languid and lazily. “Hey, Shuichi…”

As they neared their hideout, Shuichi’s jog tempered and he stilled. “Yeah?”

“... you smell disgusting.”

From where his face was stuffed into Shuichi’s robes, Kokichi didn’t know how Shuichi reacted to that little tidbit of information. Whether he chose to ignore it, whether he blushed, whether he was happy or angry, he didn’t know. He simply snuggled closer still, his cheek bare against Shuichi’s chest. His nose had stopped bleeding a while ago. His ankle didn’t hurt anymore, either. There was really no reason for Shuichi to hold him, but Kokichi knew better than to complain. He drank in Shuichi’s warmth, his temperament, his scent… everything that made Shuichi him. 

At some point, Shuichi had continued walking. At some point, Kokichi had been set down in their hideout, a campfire crackling next to him and warming his frigid fingers. Shuichi held a dirtied rag drenched in water to his face, wiping away the blood and the smears. “You really do need to be more careful, you know.”

Kokichi sighed and smiled, his gaze meeting Shuichi’s for the first time that night. “If I do that, then you’ll have to stop taking care of me!”

Shuichi tutted and shook his head, wringing the rag out over the water basin that had luckily been filled to the brim near the two of them. “You’re being ridiculous.” In the darkness of their hideout, Kokichi couldn’t see the shade of Shuichi’s face - perhaps he was blushing. Perhaps his words had no effect on the boy. Shuichi was focused and sure, his eyebrows scrunched together in concentration as he used the little muscle he had to wring out the rag, thick droplets of bloodied water dropping into the basin. Shuichi gestured upwards with his finger, beckoning Kokichi to raise his head. “Up.”

Kokichi complied, lazily staring at the ceiling above him as Shuichi slid the wet rag into his hand to plug his nose. For an abandoned shack that they had only discovered by chance, it was rather well taken care of. The rooftop was void of the typical dealings that their other temporary settlements had; the few cobwebs that dominated the corners of the foyer had been batted down with a broomstick courtesy of Rantaro. They really were lucky.

“Hey, by the way… I found something for you.”

Kokichi tilted his head quizzically from where his head was suspended to stare at the ceiling. “Yeah? What?”

Although he couldn’t turn his head to look at what Shuichi was offering him, he heard the familiar rustle of ivory. Even from Shuichi’s position, he could practically hear the smile in the boy’s voice as he spoke, “dice. Do you like them?”

“I can’t see them. Maybe.”

The boy before him spilled the dice on to the ground, ivory clattering against marble floors. Surprisingly, Rantaro was still asleep - with the commotion that the two of them had made arriving at the hideaway and the clatter of dice, Kokichi would’ve expected the green-haired man to have awaken from his slumber by then  _ (- or, at the very least, for Tsumugi to require him to make a perception check-) _ but no luck. “Well, I had an idea for a game…”

Still pinching his nose even though Kokichi was sure that the blood had stopped running from it, he made an odd noise resemblant to Squidward’s laugh. “You’re beating around the bush.”

“R-Right! Well… have you heard of Passe-dix?” and Kokichi squinted in both real life and in this fantasy world, racking his brain for where he’s heard that name before. In truth, he hadn’t - it must’ve been something that Shuichi researched. Although Shuichi had started as a relatively weak and awkward roleplayer, over time he had found himself to excel in the research department. While most players would take out a stack of cards and insist on playing Black Jack, a game that Kokichi was certain hadn’t existed in medieval times, Shuichi went to the trouble of actually researching games from that era. Hadn’t he only found the dice this session? Regardless, Kokichi shook his head, still not looking the boy in the eyes. “It’s pretty simple! We use three of these six-sided dice. If you roll above a 10, you get to double the stake. If you roll below a 10, you lose the stake. There’s a banker, too - I’ll play that part. Normally it changes every round, but we’re just playing one round today, so I can just be the banker for that!”

Finally, Kokichi took the dirty and soaking rag away from his nostrils, little streaks of blood sullying the already worn cloth. With that, he glanced at the nervous boy before him and the ivory dice littering the floor. Shuichi was half-grinning, ruminating on his request and Kokichi’s lack of an answer. Testing, Kokichi stayed quiet, a smirk bitten back and his teeth digging into his lip. Shuichi didn’t move, but his smile fell.

“Okay! That sounds like fun! But…” and Kokichi glanced at Shuichi’s coin purse left haphazardly on a chair in the corner, begging to be stolen from. “You mentioned a stake?” he lifted an eyebrow and leaned forward, his elbows digging into his knees and his lips twisting into a cruel smile resemblant of an attacking python. “How much are we putting in the pot?”

“Ah-” Shuichi followed his line of sight. “No! Not any physical coin,” he ignored Kokichi’s pout and continued on, “I was thinking something more like… well, I found this…” and he dug into his satchel, still disregarding Kokichi’s rather peeved expression. From his satchel, he drew an assortment of purple rose petals, plucked fresh from the bud of a flower. “We could use these to gamble instead!”

Kokichi’s scowl grew. “Seriously? That’s so boring! I want cash! Cold, hard cash!”

Rolling his eyes, Shuichi dropped the petals on the floor. “We already share all of our money - having your own personal coin wouldn’t change anything.”   
  


“Shu-bear! You’re being so mean to me,” and Kokichi’s eyes began to well up with familiar crocodile tears, threatening to tumble down his cheeks and he prepared to wail so loud that it would both wake up Rantaro and alert the city guard that they were hiding from to their location. 

Seeing this, Shuichi frantically continued his explanation. “But!” he mussied up the rose petals before him, each individual petal lightly grazing the marble floors underneath the pair and flowing with the gentle breeze wafting in from outside, their slightly ajar window at the front of their den taking with it the cool winter breeze that was only a testament to the ravaging blizzard brewing on the horizon. “These petals are worth  _ so  _ much more than some coin!”

Of course, Kokichi knew that was bullshit. Although it may have been meta-gaming, he couldn’t help but notice Shuichi’s eyebrow twitch and his Adam's apple bob as he roleplayed from besides him. Underneath the table, his leg had continued bouncing and every so often it would graze against his covered leg, awakening a fire in the pit of his stomach as he desperately tried to ignore the strange sensation. Regardless of his strange emotions, he could detect Shuichi’s nervous energy from a mile away. He had never hailed Shuichi as a particularly good liar (then again, when you were as prolific a liar as Kokichi, even Celeste - the self-proclaimed Queen of Liars - wasn’t too hard to read through). From the corner of his eye, he could spot Tsumugi grinning to herself from behind her DM’s screen, ‘checking’ her notes as if the conversation before her couldn’t interest her less. In her glasses’ reflection, he could see that her notes were completely blank. 

Of course, they were expecting him to roll intuition, right? They wanted him to roll intuition against Shuichi’s obvious deception, to unravel his lies when they had hardly begun. That was the obvious choice; that was the expected outcome; that was the boring answer. Kokichi hated being boring. Even in roleplaying games such as these, he thrived on being a wild card, unpredictable and entertaining in moments when the story may get a little too dark and serious, somber and down to earth when the story was a little wacky, and sometimes he would switch that around too. 

Besides, it was rather interesting for Shuichi to attempt and lie to  _ him _ , someone who he knew could see right through him. Even his character, who by all means was rather similar to him in demeanor to appearance, had a high intuition modifier in tandem with his high deception and sleight of hand modifiers. Shuichi obviously knew that Kokichi could see through his ruse, given the way his throat would bob and the way his leg would speed up and the way that he was attempting with all of his might to stare directly ahead of himself and away from Kokichi, past Rantaro and through a window into the study room neighboring them. 

So Kokichi decided to be unpredictable. The boring answer was always so useless. If Shuichi wanted to be interesting, by all means he’d let him be interesting.

Kokichi, in his character-voice that was only slightly more nasally and high-pitched than his own, said “okay! Let’s start!”

If Shuichi was surprised at his response, he tried his very best not to show it. Still looking determinedly away from Kokichi, he picked up his dice and began to set out three six-sided dice.

By the end of that one-round (even when Kokichi had insisted on having two or three or even four rounds, Shuichi had put his foot down and said that they were only doing one), Kokichi had one purple rose petal in his inventory. And when Kokichi was the last person to start leaving the game room, he noticed a single purple rose petal left on Shuichi’s seat.

* * *

Shuichi was an interesting person. Rarely did Kokichi think that about anyone, and even more rarely did he say it, yet when he looked into those golden eyes, trembling and shining with questions and few answers, he couldn’t help but submit. Shuichi would smile at him, he would chuckle at Kokichi’s hesitation, and then he would grab his wrist as they escaped the dormitories, heading to places unknown to him. When Shuichi dragged him into the game room and drew a pack of dice oddly resemblant to the pair that Tsumugi had described in their dnd game, he blanched.

Three ivory, six-sided dice stared at him from atop a white desktop, their dullness contrasting brightly with the vibrant colors adorning the walls and the shelves and the floor. He simply squinted and stared at them, a question on his lips yet no feasible means by which to word it. Shuichi, seeing his hesitation, quipped: “I own a few ivory dice myself, it was a coincidence that that’s what appeared in the game. Ivory dice were very popular in medieval times, by the way. Did you know that?”

Kokichi shook his head because of  _ course  _ he didn’t know that. He had never cared for history, or science, or math, or any of those other useless subjects that Shuichi was so fond of. He’d rather focus on what actually mattered. He didn’t need to go to class when he could be planning heists. That required a lot more critical thinking than pouring over a textbook that was way too expensive and way too hefty. “You’re a real nerd, aren’t you, Shumai?”

Shuichi’s cheeks went red and his hand went to the back of the neck, massaging the fat there as he pondered over Kokichi’s jibe. “Well, I’ve always been interested in stuff from medieval times… it’s really fascinating how far we have come as a society!”

“Blegh. You’re starting to sound like Kiyo.”

Shuichi smiled softly, his lips quirking upwards with an emotion that Kokichi could not quite place. Kokichi simply stared at the boy, meeting his eyes with a schooled blank expression. Normally, he would try to be perfectly neutral in order to intimidate others, or in order to prevent them from having even the slightest inkling of what his innermost thoughts may be. This time, it was to draw out Shuichi’s true emotions, his true reasoning for bringing Kokichi, a man that absolutely everyone in their class hated sans maybe Rantaro, to the game room to play a game of, if he were to assume correctly, Passe-dix. “A-Am I? Sorry.” Unfortunately for Kokichi, his stare did nothing but cause Shuichi’s cheeks to turn even more red. He really did get flustered easily, didn’t he?”

Sighing, Kokichi threw his arms behind his head and linked them together, slamming his feet on to the game table simultaneously with a dull thud. Shuichi jumped slightly at the noise and stared pointedly at his feet resting on the surface. “... I don’t think we’re allowed to do that.”   
  


Kokichi simply leaned further back in his chair, stretching his back muscles and popping his spine. He shot a sly look at Shuichi, a pout in his bottom lip and a quirk in his right eye. Shuichi squinted his eyes at Kokichi. Kokichi stared back. Now the two of them were in a constant staring contest,  _ daring  _ the other to make the first move lest they be proven a loser. Slowly, Shuichi exhaled through his mouth - if they were in a hotter environment, Kokichi liked to imagine that there might’ve been steam coming out his nose too! Wouldn’t that be a sight? - and, still unblinking, tilted his head at Kokichi. 

Kokichi blew a raspberry.

“Kokichi!” Still not blinking and not looking away from the man, Shuichi pointed his finger at Kokichi’s shoes, still carrying the remnants of mud from a recent heist with DICE, a heist in which they had foolishly decided to crawl through the grass and the bushes right after a rather temperamental rainstorm. All of them had to discard those sets of uniforms after that day. 

Kokichi rolled his eyes, still unblinking, and met Shuichi’s fiery amber gaze once more. “Whaaaaaat?”

“Your shoes are dirty. Put them down. Now.” And Shuichi paused for a second, hesitating, “... please.”

Kokichi grinned at that hiccup, any slight trace of intimidation radiating from Shuichi - not that there was much to begin with - gone in the blink of an eye. “Nope!”

“ _ Kokichi! _ ”

“Anyways, what’d you call me here for?”

“I wanted to know if you wanted to play some more Passe-dix--”

“Passe-what-now?”

“Passe- _ dix! _ I’ve already told you -- you’re messing with me, aren’t you?”

“Liars never tell their secrets!” Kokichi held a finger to his mouth, tapping his bottom lip slyly. Shuichi stared at him, completely unimpressed, and Kokichi couldn’t help but laugh.

“You know what, nevermind…” Shuichi stood up, collecting his dice with him as he prepared for his departure. Finally, he blinked. He tore his gaze away from Kokichi and forced himself not to look at his dirtied shoes resting haphazardly on the table. “I’m just gonna… go. Yep. Um…” and he began retreating towards the door rather awkwardly. Kokichi simply watched him go. As Shuichi opened the doors to the hallway, he turned back around and met Kokichi’s eyes, tripping over his own feet once he did.

Behind him, he left another violet rose petal.

* * *

It happened in a dnd session. 

Of course, Kokichi knew that Shuichi was… socially awkward, to put it lightly. He often didn’t know what to say, sometimes he would stammer and blush whenever he would fail at the many social interactions he would have to engage in everyday (and by sometimes, Kokichi meant most of the time). Sometimes, though not often, he would suddenly get a burst of courage and shout what he was thinking. Almost immediately after, he would always withdraw into his shell and disassociate from the outside world, trapped in a mind palace that was surely berating him with every passing second. 

This was one of those times.

_ “Because I like you!” _

Obviously, Shuichi had been speaking in character. He wasn’t stupid enough to think Shuichi, an absolute genius of a detective with good looks to boot, would actually be attracted to him. Nope. It wasn’t possible. Kokichi was… Kokichi. Shuichi was Shuichi. Shuichi had friends where he didn’t (discounting DICE, of course, but they always had his back). Shuichi was pretty where he wasn’t. Whereas Shuichi was diligent and studious in his classes, Kokichi was lazy and skipped class too many times to count. Whereas Shuichi had a bright future ahead of him, Kokichi couldn’t see himself doing much else other than committing petty crime for the rest of his days. They were in two completely different worlds. Shuichi was  _ way  _ out of his league, and even if some days he would find himself fawning over his soft eyelashes and the way that his bangs would brush the top of his nose just so, he had never considered those feelings to be more than flights of fantasy. He had what you would call a small crush on Shuichi, yes. He thought he was pretty, yes. He thought he was kind and intelligent and sometimes he wished that the detective would hold him in his arms as he drifted off to sleep and read him bedtime stories and whisper goodnight into his ear and-

Where was he?

Oh, right!

Kokichi absolutely did  _ not  _ have a crush on Shuichi Saihara! And contrary to what Rantaro and Tsumugi would try to convince him of after the dnd session, Shuichi Saihara did  _ not  _ have a crush on Kokichi Ouma. He did  _ not  _ want to be his boyfriend.  _ That  _ was the truth! He hated the truth just as much as he hated lies - it was so boring and convenient and so absolute, but he couldn’t deny a necessary truth. It was necessary to affirm that Shuichi Saihara did  _ not  _ like him.

He didn’t!

_ Right? _

Yes! Absolutely! He did not!

The party had been ambushed. Hordes upon hordes of bandits and city guards surrounded them, apparently having teamed up after Kokichi’s latest heist. At the benefit of having caught Ronpa’s notorious phantom thief, they would be free to loot the corpses of Shuichi and Rantaro. It worked out perfectly for everyone (Kokichi couldn’t help but regard the city guard’s corruptness as absolutely vile, and the bandit’s willingness to snitch out fellow thieves in arms more so, but he kept that part to himself). Seeing as there was no foreseeable way out from the situation, Kokichi had given himself up. He stripped himself of his armor, he laid down his shortbow and his daggers, and he whispered at his other party members to run. They had protested, of course. Vehemently so. Rantaro had frantically whispered that they would stay by his side through thick and thin. He kept reassuring Kokichi over and over, until Kokichi was far enough away from the duo and close enough to the enemies that he could no longer hear him. 

Kokichi had been a selfish party member, yes. His character was selfish, yes. Therefore, it seemed like a fitting end to give up his life in a true moment of selflessness. In Kokichi’s last moments, he would die knowing that he saved his friends; nay, his  _ family.  _ That’s what dnd was for. He didn’t mind his character dying, not really… he could always select a new character. And despite the fact that the party was level seven, he couldn’t imagine them getting out of the current situation unscathed. Perhaps Tsumugi had planned this situation as a comeuppance for his notorious deeds throughout the campaign, who knows.

When he looked behind him, the rest of his party was gone. He had smiled, knowing that they had taken his advice, and looked into certain death: the eyes of the city guard commander were vicious and cruel, unyielding and resolute. He was a large man and a probable half-orc, towering over the boy by at least two feet. So Kokichi closed his eyes and relaxed, even when he heard the sound of the man’s sword scraping against the inside of his sheathe. He was happy. He had finally done it. With this, maybe they would be proud of him…

“Hey, meatbag!” and Kokichi’s eyes shot open at a distinct, high voice shouting from the forest nearby.  _ Shuichi? _ “Does your mother even love you with that ugly mug of yours? I bet when you came out of the womb, she told them to put you back in for another nine months!”

In real life, Kokichi gaped at Shuichi. “Uh, yes, I cast vicious mockery.” Shuichi stared straight ahead of himself once more, dice clenched tightly within his whitened fist.

The half-orc above him stopped short of drawing his sword, his eyes blown wide at the sudden intrusion. Slowly, carefully, he peered into the forest. “W-What?” strangely enough, his confidence seemed affected. Who knew that a great hulk of a man had confidence issues? Seeing the distraction at hand, Kokichi carefully backed away from the man. Thankfully, the crowd was distracted enough by the disembodied voice that they paid him no heed. 

“You heard me! Ugly!”

“M-My mama loves my ugly mug -- I mean, my face!” and he turned to his lackey, a short gnomish woman who seemed rather indifferent to the situation at hand. “I’m pretty, right? I’m pretty?”

The gnome turned to stare at him, assessing his features carefully. She tapped her chin with her finger, stroking it as though she had a long, Gandalf-like beard. After a moment, she shrugged. “I mean, you’re… okay? Nothing to write home about. No offense.”

From his peripheral vision, he saw Rantaro gesturing frantically at Kokichi from behind a tree. Carefully and purposefully, Kokichi began to stride away from the horde of enemies, all of them too distracted by validating their boss’s insecurities that they failed to even notice their target enemy escaping their clutches. Once he was far enough away, Kokichi caught up to Rantaro. A moment later, Shuichi reached them too, having been a bit further into the woods.

At first, it was silent as they ran away from the ambush, careful to cover their tracks and keeping watch for any other enemies that could potentially attack them. It wasn’t until nighttime, after Rantaro had already turned in for the night, that Shuichi turned to him - both in character and in real life.

“What was that?”

Kokichi knew what he was referring to, of course. It had been an elephant in the room how he was so willing to give up his life for the benefit of the party. He had thought it was noble and good development for his character, but given Shuichi and Rantaro’s sour expressions he had a feeling they didn’t appreciate it. Oh well. In real life, Kokichi peered at his nails as though he were bored, carefully examining the fine lilac paint job he had done the night before last. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

And in real life, Shuichi leaned closer. Although he was still far enough away that it wasn’t necessarily breaching his personal space, Kokichi could feel Shuichi’s warm breath cascade on his face and he could feel as the up-and-down motions of his leg began to still and quiet, solid and serious and defiant against the normal status quo they had established at the table. “ _ Kokichi. _ ” And he knew he wasn’t talking to his character. He was talking to  _ him. _

So he parodied him, a bite to his words that he normally reserved for the likes of Miu Iruma or Kaito Momota. “ _ Shuichi. _ ” If Shuichi was intimidated, he didn’t show it. He grit his teeth and fastened his face into a scowl. In replacement of his leg bouncing, his fingernail began to softly tap on the corner of the table, clicking and clacking in the deadly quiet game room. 

“Why did you just try to kill your chara -- I mean…” and his voice rose into a high falsetto, the voice he had chosen for his character. “... why were you so willing to give up? We could’ve caused a distraction instead! We did, and no one got hurt.”

_ Because,  _ Kokichi thought bitterly, _ Tsumugi surrounded us with fifty enemies. I thought the only way out was death. Better for one of us to die than all of us.  _ Yet he didn’t. Instead, he smiled and strained his nose so that it would produce that nasally quality that he required for his character. Yet, even then, he could see through the facade - he could spot Shuichi’s piercing glare staring straight through his soul; he could see the tension in Shuichi’s shoulders as he fought and resisted the boy in a cold war of words. “Aw… were you worried about me, Shumai!”

And then he burst out in a great show of passion, “of course I was!” and he paused and regained control of his breathing, willing his flushed cheeks to cool and his demeanor to temper. “I didn’t want you to get hurt. I didn’t want you to…” his implications went unsaid, but the mere implication of such events caused a smile, sick and twisted, to appear on Kokichi’s face.

Kokichi winked. “It was for the good of the party.”

From where Shuichi had been tapping the table, he instead turned to gripping it with sheer brute strength. His knuckles whitened and clenched in response, the small muscles in his forearm unveiling themselves in Shuichi’s struggle. Still, his voice didn’t waver. It was quiet and calculating and cold. “The good of the party? What do you know? It wouldn’t have been good for me.”

At that, Kokichi paused. “What? You always seem so annoyed with me. Wouldn’t I be better off dead?”

“ _ No!  _ Of course not!”

And finally, Kokichi pressed forward, that sickening nasally quality still embedded into his voice like second nature. “Why?”

“ _ Because I like you! _ ” As soon as those words had left his mouth, Shuichi’s hands shot over his mouth and away from the table, gripping his cheeks with such ferocity that his fingerprints were sure to leave red marks stained around his lips. He stared forward, frozen as stiff as a board, into the window of that study room next door, and quieted.

_ That was in character, right? _

_ Yeah. It has to be in character. _

And so, in character, Kokichi said: “hm… is that so?” He tapped his lip, a wicked smile dominating his face. He had never been a particular fan of in-character romances, but if Shuichi was initiating it… well, he couldn’t turn that down! At least it’d be interesting! “Well… you’ll have to court me first! I don’t just fall for any random guy who says he fancies me, you know?”

Shuichi’s hands fell from his face and to his lap, something unresemblant to anything that Kokichi had ever seen from the detective shining within his eyes. Shuichi simply nodded, his mouth agape and his hair disheveled. Man, what a mess.

After that, Shuichi didn’t talk much for the rest of the session. When he found something of interest, sometimes he would ask to make an investigation check. When Tsumugi would ask Shuichi what his character wanted to do, he would respond in kind. Although Shuichi was never renowned for being particularly  _ talkative _ , he was privy to ask questions regarding the situation when presented with a new area or a new plot hook. He would always respond when in a situation with another character, willing to roleplay even if he wasn’t particularly good at distinguishing the character from himself. Today, he did none of that. He simply stared forward blankly. 

When the session ended, he was the first one out of the game room. In his wake, his left a single purple rose petal. 

* * *

As Kokichi Ouma laid in bed, slowly drifting to sleep to the sound of pounding rain raging against his window, he stared at a purple rose petal. Reflected in the dim lamplight, Kokichi could see the wrinkles and imperfections that lay atop that petal; he could see that it was withering, that it was dead, that it was impure and not what many would consider beauty. At the same time, he saw how it was the same shade as his eyes. He saw how delicately the edges of the petal had been ripped away from the flower. He saw how much love and care Shuichi had put into discreetly placing the petal, he saw how he had always made sure Kokichi would only receive the petal  _ after  _ Shuichi had left, and it made him so confused.

_ “Because I like you!” _

That was an in-character statement, right?   
  


Or… was that a lie?   
  


He didn’t like not knowing. He didn’t like being unsure. He didn’t like this warmth that blossomed in his chest every time he saw a new rose petal or every time he reminisced over memories with Shuichi. He didn’t like this pretty detective boy. He didn’t. 

Even if he did, hypothetically speaking, of course, they were absolutely  _ not  _ meant to be! Shuichi Saihara was a detective, a truth-seeker, someone who always was yearning to seek justice. He was the  _ Ultimate Detective _ . Meanwhile, Kokichi Ouma was the polar opposite. He was a liar. He loved making people hate him. He loved hurting people. Every time he said something particularly cruel to Miu, every time he mocked Kaito and Maki, every time he told Kaede she was bound to die an early death if she kept caring so much, that was all from the absolute evil that rotted his heart. He was evil. Yes, he was an evil person. Shuichi shouldn’t like someone like him.

Yet…

_ “Because I like you!” _

As if on cue, his doorbell rang. Kokichi dropped that purple rose petal and it fluttered softly on to his face, brushing his eyelashes as it rocked to the breeze produced by the fan. Carefully, slowly, Kokichi peeled the rose petal off and laid it on his desk, taking special care to put it in a place where the fan wouldn’t blow it off. He crept to the door, peering outside of the hole to spot who dared knock on his door at ten o’clock. Although he looked and looked, he saw no one. Just a prank, then.

As if sensing his inner thoughts, the doorbell rang again despite no one appearing through the hole. Maybe Ryoma was trying to talk to him?

When he opened the door, he saw nothing but a purple petal. 

“... Shuichi?” he called, but no one answered. Slowly, he leaned down to pick up that purple rose petal.

That makes four, then.

And as he prepared to head back inside his dormitory with additional material to digest and mull over, he spotted another rose petal from the corner of his eye. And then another. And then another. Dozens of rose petals sat in a line, leading down the hallway and around the corner. Kokichi tutted, peering at those rose petals - an egregious amount of petals, may he add. What, did Shuichi expect him to just pick up all of those petals? What, like a bird? They had janitors for that.

… meanwhile, as Kokichi picked up dozens upon dozens of rose petals, all leading distinctly to a certain game room that he was most familiar with by this point in his high school career, he cursed his own stupidity. Yes, he was head-over-heels. There’s no point in lying to himself anymore. He liked this stupid detective boy, what can he do?

And from the looks of it, that stupid detective liked him, an even more idiotic specimen. Maybe they had more in common than had first thought. 

As he picked up the last rose petal, sitting pretty and upright on the floor just outside his room, he sighed in frustration. What the fuck was he doing? Maybe… this was all some big practical joke! Kaito probably put Shuichi up to this - no, maybe the entire goddamn class helped! They all hated him. They all did. 

This was a lot of effort to go through for humiliation, though.

It’d be a shame not to see it through to the end.

And, maybe, if he was prepared it wouldn’t be so bad! Maybe he could turn it around on Shuichi! Maybe  _ he  _ could be humiliated, instead! With a nod and a devilish grin, he flung that game room door open, his pockets overflowing with purple rose petals that spilled out with every movement he made. And he was preparing to yell, to shout that he caught on already so they could stop messing around with him, to say that he  _ knew  _ Shuichi couldn’t possibly be as nice as he portrayed himself to be. He was, until he saw the detective sitting dapper and ready in a chair, a purple bouquet in front of him and a black and white tuxedo trimmed with blue lining adorning his body. 

Fuck, he was even prettier than normal. 

The words that Kokichi wanted to say died on his lips; with it, his resolve crumpled and decayed. 

The boy, who had been twisting his hands together idly in the game room before his arrival, startled at the noise of the game room slamming open. Despite how ridiculous Kokichi must look with his mouth agape and his posture as rigid as a wooden board, he smiled; Kokichi noticed then that he looked a touch relieved, as if he expected Kokichi to not show up at all, or to yell at him, or to mock him. Instead, Kokichi simply stood and stared, his socked feet delicately scraping against the flooring as he shuffled.

Shuichi stood and grabbed the bouquet before him with both hands, taking practiced and long steps towards him. Then, Kokichi noticed that his tuxedo had a tail and he was absolutely weak. 

“You actually came!” he said, his grin so mirthful and full of life that Kokichi felt stupid for even doubting him in the first place. There was no way a smile like that could lie; unless Shuichi was as prolific a liar as himself, there was absolutely no way he wouldn’t be able to see right through him. Instead, he saw  _ hope.  _ He saw the way his lip quivered in excitement and the way his eyes lit up as soon as Kokichi entered the room. Then, before he knew it, Shuichi was right in front of Kokichi’s toes, holding out his bouquet as his cheeks adopted a rosy hue. “I got these for you! I thought they matched your eyes, so…” he then took out a pamphlet from his back pocket. “Toko Fukawa, um, she’s an upperclassman, she wrote me this! Uh… The Dummy’s Guide to Courting Your Favorite Gremlin As A Pathetically Uncharismatic Detective… very long-winded, but, um, it gives a lot of good advice! Fukawa’s really good with romance, she writes, uh, romance novels, but um…” 

Even as Shuichi continued to word-vomit at him, Kokichi held on to every single word. He listened as he stammered and blushed and tripped over his own feet explaining the situation. There was still one thing he didn’t understand, one thing he hadn’t made clear, one thing that Kokichi was yearning to know. And so he asked, “why?”

Shuichi paused in the middle of his ramblings, tilting his head cutely like a puppy. His face blanched and his mouth fell open, unsure of how to respond, most likely. “Um… what?”

Kokichi gestured to the bouquet, and then back to himself and his overstuffed pockets, and then at Shuichi’s ridiculously handsome tuxedo. “This. Did Kaito put you up to this?”

Shuichi reeled back. “Uh… no. I just… what I said in dnd, was… true.” And then Shuichi began flipping through his pamphlet, flashing different pages at Kokichi with every flip. There were different sections: knowing your gremlin, courting your gremlin, smooching your gremlin…  _ smooching? _ “Oh! Y-You don’t need to pay attention to that part! U-Unless you want to, of course, but uh… no pressure! Hahaha…” and with that he buried his face in the pamphlet, obscuring his cute blush from Kokichi’s sight. Kokichi wanted to reach over and yank it down, but he resisted. Instead, he watched as Shuichi let out a rather pathetic, high-pitched squeal.

_ Wow. So this is the real thing. _

_ Shuichi is awful at confessing. _

And then Kokichi felt his cheeks begin to burn, but he swallowed down his fear and his embarrassment to instead stare blankly at Shuichi, waiting for him to lower that damned pamphlet. When he made no signs of doing so, Kokichi simply called out his name, “hey. Shuichi.”

Slowly, Shuichi peered over the pamphlet blocking his face. Up to the roots of his hair, Kokichi spotted a deep red, crimson hue. Shuichi stilled at Kokichi’s blank expression, nervously chuckling at the quiet. “Y-Yes?”

“I’m not a good person, you know. There’s a reason no one likes me.”

Immediately, Shuichi lowered his pamphlet and stuffed it back into his pocket. And then he reached forward to grasp Kokichi’s hands; his hands were so warm and soft in opposition to Kokichi’s frigid and calloused hands - it was… almost comforting. “I like you.”

Kokichi rolled his eyes. “Yeah, obviously. I think you’re missing the--”

“I’m not done!” he continued, tightening his grip on Kokichi’s palm. “You  _ are  _ a good person. You just like to act like you’re not, right?”

“Nope! I’m  _ actually  _ the leader of an evil secret organization! I can literally change the world with one phone call, and everything bad that happens in the world is  _ my  _ fault! So, I would suggest--”

“You’re talking about DICE, right?”

Now it was Kokichi’s turn to freeze. Shuichi shouldn’t know about DICE. It was a  _ secret  _ organization for a reason! When anyone entered DICE, they had to make an oath to tell no one about DICE under  _ any  _ circumstances. He had never violated that oath, so… was Shuichi a stalker or something? No, that wouldn’t line up with what he knows about Shuichi! But… maybe…

“Before you start freaking out,” interjected Shuichi, effectively tearing Kokichi out of his train of thought, “I’m a detective, you know. It wasn’t hard to put two-and-two together. There was a photo taken recently of this mysterious group of rambunctious pranksters that wear clown masks,” and he smiled and lifted his free hand, the hand clasping Kokichi’s, to his wild mane of purple hair. “I think I would recognize this hair anywhere.”

Kokichi groaned and scowled. “Oh, great. So, I compromised my identity!”

“Well…” Shuichi chuckled, “I wouldn’t go that far. As a detective, I have a way of pulling some strings. So, all I had to do was say it was for a case I was working on… they gave it right to me!” and Shuichi chuckled at that, smiling brightly down at Kokichi when the shorter man met his eyes. “Tricks of the trade.”

Kokichi gasped dramatically, holding a dainty little hand to his chest as though scorched. “Shumai! You rebel!” Yet, inside, Kokichi was feeling all sorts of ways: exhilarated, thankful, confused, and most of all… happy. Shuichi would really protect him, wouldn’t he? He could easily lose his job over this. 

Shuichi massaged the back of his head, bashfully looking away as the red hue that had dominated his cheeks prior came back. “I-I wouldn’t say I’m a rebel, but…” he smiled again, this time so warm and accepting that Kokichi’s heart skipped a beat. “I didn’t want them to hurt you.” He held up the bouquet in his other hand out to Kokichi once more, his cheeks burning fiercely as he waved it once and then twice. “By the way, I guess I’ll just officially say it… Kokichi. I-I really like you. A lot. And I was wondering… do you want to go on a date sometime?”

Kokichi froze. He did. He really did. He wanted to be held by Shuichi. He wanted to dance with Shuichi to some cheesy pop song. He wanted to do everything with Shuichi, but he was scared - he didn’t want to be understood or romanced or loved. He didn’t. He wanted everything, absolutely everything, to stay the exact same way.

But that was just a lie, wasn’t it?

And so, with his cheeks burning fiercely and his heart thumping wildly to the sounds of a beating drum, a single word escaped from his lips: “yes.” And when Shuichi smiled down at him, bright and gorgeous and so lovingly, he didn’t regret a single thing. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who made it this far! Kudos and comments make my day, so if you liked the fic enough please consider leaving one ^^;
> 
> Also, if anyone hasn't tried Dungeons & Dragons before, check it out! It's super fucking fun~!
> 
> TWITTER: @M_BTree
> 
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